Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Miniland Mayhem

Posted: 11/13/10

While he may play the hero in his upcoming Wii game, Donkey Kong goes back to his mischievous roots in this low-profile release. Kidnapping princesses and guarding girders proved to be too strong a draw: the noble ape has fallen off the wagon.

For a series that originated on the Game Boy as an offshoot of the mainline Donkey Kong games, Mini-Land Mayhem has evolved away from the idea of a directly controllable Mario hunting down the savage simian. What you'll play here has morphed more toward remotely navigating a strategic sandbox. The scales have tilted completely on the side of puzzles, eliminating platforming all together.

You no longer have any control over Mario's miniature wind-up companions, and instead guide them past obstacles to each stage's exit door solely by manipulating the environment. It may make for a better game than its predecessors, but the trade-off feels less directly engaging. Think Lemmings meets Limbo, and you're halfway there.

The drag-and-drop tactical navigation style offers similar pleasures to dozens of titles proliferating in the mobile phone market from Nintendo's competitors. With so many time-wasting tinker toy sets available for much cheaper, it's hard to argue this game deserves the premium of a full retail release. That's more of a reflection of the crowded market, though, than a commentary on the game's quality.

With high-tension boss fights and over 200 levels, there's a substantial amount of content here. The game awards you with medals and trophies for gathering collectibles and completing speed runs, which in turn unlock challenge modes that dwarf the size of the main campaign, a veritable perfectionist's playground. You'll find the levels just fun enough and so full of challenges pitched ever-so-slightly outside of the plate that you'll quickly lose yourself in stocking up on accolades.

With an online creation hub to share and download levels, Nintendo's opened the door for you to rapidly disseminate your own content constructions. It's a wonderful tool for learning level design and experimenting with the elementary building blocks of streamlined game development. It's less exuberantly creative than LittleBigPlanet, but the limited scope forces you to consider level blueprints the way an architect would.

Those with a keen eye for the nuts and bolts of puzzle composition will walk away moderately enriched by this effervescent anthology of game design haikus.

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